Organic electronic devices require protection from moisture and oxygen in order to provide adequately long lifetimes for commercial applications. An encapsulant is therefore utilized to protect the device from contact with moisture and oxygen. Glass is one commonly used encapsulant, but glass significantly impairs the flexibility of the device. It can therefore be desirable to replace glass with flexible barrier films. Flexible barrier films can enable flexible devices as well as lighter, thinner, more rugged rigid devices.
Flexible barrier films have been commercialized for general use in organic electronic devices. A flexible barrier film is typically laminated to the device it will protect using an adhesive. It is therefore important that the adhesive also have good barrier properties to minimize moisture and oxygen bond line edge ingress. Some barrier adhesives such as those described, for example, in U.S. Patent Application Pub. No. US 2014/0377554 (Cho et al.) include nanoclays as a “moisture blocker”.